


you got a pretty kinda dirty face

by madseba



Category: Brooklyn Nine-Nine (TV)
Genre: (eventually) - Freeform, F/M, Mutual Pining, Slow Burn, So basically, and here we are, like so slow it would lose a race to a snail in slow motion, owyn/jormaperalta/elevenperalta suggested a cops and robbers!au, so thanks for that, this is going to be cheesy and fluffy as heck man
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-11-19
Updated: 2016-11-19
Packaged: 2018-08-31 20:36:57
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,936
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8592622
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/madseba/pseuds/madseba
Summary: He never wants to do another bad thing in his life and it's all her fault. **title based on Robbers- The 1975**





	

Amy Santiago was a very orderly person. She had never liked disorder, even as a child. Her toys were always neatly organized, their accessories color coded and filed away using some dated system only she understood. Learning about the Dewey decimal system in her elementary school's library was borderline provocative. She knew that everyone else thought it was boring, and that everyone else thought she was a nerd, but the  _organization_. She vowed to someday be like Dewey himself, with an organizational system so legendary it went down in history, rivaling him for a place in libraries worldwide. 

Amy Santiago was also a rule-follower. It came as no surprise to anyone when she, the most orderly, obedient, approval-seeking person joined the police academy. After all, it only made sense. The only thing that rivaled her eyes for brownness was her nose. She immediately rose to the top of her class, where she had made quite the platform for herself. As far as she was concerned, she'd be shattering glass ceilings by the time she was old enough to legally drink. She wanted to be captain. The idea of keeping her own neat office (instead of sharing a double desk with Charles) was almost orgasmic. Plus, there was the telling people what to do thing, and the automatic respect from Pretty Much Anyone thing. She longed for respect that didn't have to be fought for, but instead was freely given alongside a name drop like a toy with a kids' meal. She especially wished to one day not have the authority of someone else constantly looming overhead. She knew that Police Captain wasn't the highest title in all the land or anything, but it was something. It was a start. 

"Santiago!" She flinched at her Captain's voice. Of course, Captain Holt wasn't much to be feared, he was more bark than bite. It was just that the bark always shivered her to her core. She always over-analyzed everything, so every time she was called into his office, she worried and worried and worried that she'd done something wrong (which was nearly impossible, but was still, in her mind, a Totally Feasible thing to worry about.)

"Coming Captain!" She shuffled her papers back into number order as quickly as possible.

"Do you ever leave your desk messy? Like, ever?" Rosa teased. Amy shot her a look as she hurried into the Captain's office. She cleared her throat and Holt motioned for her to sit down.

"What can I do you fo-" she cleared her throat again, "sorry, sir, what can I do for you?"

She hated how flustered she got around authority. No amount of deep breathing exercises could keep her whip-smart brain from effectively turning to mush when confronted with an authority figure.

"Well, I've got a case for you. There's been a string of robberies, and they want my best people on this, so, naturally, I thought of you. They have one lead. They're bringing him in later."

She could feel her cheeks flush at the compliment, and as much as she wanted to dwell on it, savor it for a second longer, she instead quipped an excited, "thank you so much, Captain! I won't let you down!"

"I know you won't. And, Amy?"

He hardly ever referred to her by her first name. She swallowed the lump in her throat. 

"Be careful. My buddy at the 45th says he's a real charmer. A weasel."

She sloppily saluted him (and immediately hated herself for it), "I won't let him defeat me!"

The amount of embarrassment she felt was crushing. She took the file from Holt and rushed to her desk. She had been entrusted with a seemingly important case and was eager as ever to prove herself.

"Did you get a new case?" Charles peered over his own files to see Amy's. It was stamped with a name he could hardly make out.

"Jake...Peralta? What'd he do?"

Amy flipped through the first few pages, skimming as she went. His mug shot caught her eye, but she ignored it. Excitedly, she gushed, "he's a suspect in a string of robberies. According to his file, he has a few other misdemeanors, but most of those are from years ago. I just can't believe Holt would trust me with this!"

"Yeah, we get it. Santiago's the star student!" Rosa mocked, her usual sly smile glued to her face. Rosa's mockery was almost always empty. She had a tough exterior, but a heart of gold. Most people didn't notice, but Amy saw right through her. 

An officer from another precinct walked in and whispered something to Sergeant Jeffords.

"Amy," he gestured toward the interrogation room with his head. She crossed the room in a few shaky strides. It felt as if her heart was trying to beat its way out of her body through her stomach.

"Good luck, kid, this one might be tough," Terry nudged her with his elbow encouragingly.

"Thanks, Sarge." She tossed a stray piece of hair over her shoulder and took a deep breath.  _Focus, Amy. Focus._

She pushed the door open and took one final deep breath. The remaining two officers gave her a polite head nod. On the way out, she heard them making bets on how long she'd last in the room with him. She rolled her eyes. She was  _just_ as capable of interrogating a perp as her male coworkers! Hell, she was better. She straightened her back and turned to face him. 

He didn't look as intimidating as everyone made him seem. His brown eyes weren't cold or empty. They were soft, and warm. He smiled when he saw her. 

"Hmm," he smirked, "you're almost as pretty as the guy who interrogated me yesterday."

\-----

Jake Peralta was a mess. His dad left when he was younger, and since then, he'd do anything for the attention and affirmation of father figures. First, it was his mom's next boyfriend. Next, a gym teacher that doubled as a soccer coach. Jake had been horrible at soccer and eventually quit because he knew he could never work hard enough to gain the coach's approval. For a while, he didn't understand why his dad left, and then, in high school, he resented him. Jake started to act out by taking packs of gum from grocery stores, or yelling at his mom's boyfriends, or dissociating himself from all of his male friends. He tried alcohol for a while, stealing it from his mom's liquor cabinet. Eventually, she caught on and he felt bad disappointing her, so he stopped. 

The first time he almost landed himself in jail was for public intoxication. He was twenty-two, and it was the anniversary of his dad leaving. He got drunk in a bar called Shaw's and got caught in an alley throwing beer bottles at a brick wall. The officer let him off because he was young, and it was his first (known) offense. They agreed to put it on his record, but he wouldn't do any time. The second time, also on the anniversary of his father leaving, he found his girlfriend in bed with someone else. He couldn't find it in him to hit the guy, but he yelled. He yelled for what seemed like hours on end. He yelled until the cops showed up and made him stop yelling. Again, gracious cops let him off with a warning and another smudge to his record. 

He wasn't sure when he decided to start stealing things. He just did. Jake was impulsive and always had been, and one day, he stumbled upon an open window and a piqued interest. He climbed through the window, grabbed a beer out of the fridge, twenty dollars, and a single salt shaker and climbed back out. He pocketed the salt shaker, drank the beer, and slipped the twenty in a homeless girl's pocket. A few days later, another open window led him to snag a poster off some girl's wall, a target gift card, and a bottle of homemade lemonade. He left a note:

_Lemonade is ballin'. You should totes go into the lemonade business._

_Love,_

_Your Robber._

He gave the poster to a crying little girl in line at an ice cream shop and sat for hours at target until he found someone that seemed deserving of the gift card. The next (and last) house he hit, someone was home. They hardly saw his face, thus only making him a  _suspect_ in a whole lineup of Jake Peralta lookalikes. 

 _Wannabes,_ he thought. 

"So, Mr. Peralta--"

"Please, call me Jake."

Amy blushed. She immediately cursed herself for it. He was just as charming as Holt had warned. 

"I'm not gonna do that."

"Suit yourself, Detective...?"

She was a bit startled. She'd never had a perp care about her name before.

"Santiago. Amy Santiago," she wasn't sure why she told him her first name. Something about him was trustworthy, which was stupid, because he was a criminal. She cleared her throat nervously.

"Where were you on June 10th?" She slid into the seat opposite, trying to be intimidating.

"Home."

"All day?"

"Nope. I took a walk that night."

"Did you walk by this house?" She showed him a picture of the first house, the one he stole the salt shaker from.

"I walk by a lot of houses, Ames," he laughed, "why do you ask?"

Nobody but her brothers had ever called her that. Something in her gut shifted and she willed herself not to like him. It wasn't like she was interested in romance, per se, but he was definitely an interesting person.

"Be-because this house was robbed on June 10th. And I think you already knew that."

"I did," he admitted.

"Are you admitting to the crime?"

"I'm admitting to watching the news. There was cool segment on that night about..." he trailed off as he appeared to be thinking, "bees! An interesting segment on bees."

Amy couldn't even contest this, because she also watched the news dutifully every night and saw this segment on bees. She swallowed hard.

"Okay...bees...and, um," she shuffled through her notes, "where were you on June 14th?" 

"Working. Then home. Then a walk."

"Another walk?"

"Another walk. They're relaxing. You should try it sometime." He laughed, noticing how rigid she was, "are you always so uptight, Detective Santiago?"

"Generally, yeah. And I'm asking the questions around here!"

"Such a typical cop phrase," he teased as he raised his hands and combed through his hair. She sighed, disheveled. She'd lost her place in her notes.  _Why was he making her even more nervous than usual?_

"Okay, listen, I have a question. And I know  _you're_ asking the questions, and I swear I mean you no disrespect, but just one question?" He cocked an eyebrow and she set her jaw. 

"One question," she practically growled. He was smooth as glass and it was annoying. He clearly didn't think about anything before he did it, and he could clearly get away with this if he wanted to.  _Look at him,_ she thought. Instantly, she regretted the thought. Giving in for half a second, she really looked at him. He looked harmless. Misunderstood if anything. 

"Cool cool cool," he started, all too fast, "what made you become a detective?"

"What? Seriously? No! You're just trying to distract me."

She wasn't wrong. He was trying to distract her. But not because he didn't want to answer her questions, but because her dedication to this case,  _his_ case, made him never want to do anything wrong ever again in his life. 

 

 

**Author's Note:**

> feel free to follow me on tumblr (@jokeperatla) for more incoherent rambling and screaming about the things I love.


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